Welcome –  President-elect John Moffat welcomed us and reminded us President Steve Ban is in Hungary for a few weeks and has left us in good hands. 

 

October 14, 2024 Speaker Change announcement:  Mayor Kim Lund has rescheduled for January 6th and speaker for next week, October 14th, is Hans Erchinger-Davis with an update on the Lighthouse Mission Construction.

 

Bill Day introduced Melissa Sorinsin, WCC Foundation staff and previously employed by our speaker organization Downtown Bellingham Partnership

 

Larry Halgren introduced Kaelen Grimes, Development Director with Brigid Collins Family Support Center

 

George Halsell introduced his wife Melanie who joined the Rotary Brass

 

Catherine Riordan introduced Robert Washbond, a previous Rotarian and the new Director of Cordata Court.

 

Felicity Dye introduced our Exchange Student Haset McKuria and Monty McAllister introduced Keisuke Yamegishi

 

Larry Halgren presented a Service Grant of $1,000 to Kaelen Grimes, Development Director for Brigid Collins whose brief comments gave us an overview of their work and insight into the initiatives our gift will facilitate:  training about sexual abuse, given by survivors.  Many groups are receiving this training, hoping it will empower adults to reduce the incidence of abuse by preventing it.  Groups receiving this training range from book groups to all the graduates of WWU’s Woodring College.  For more information see www.D@L.org.

 

Larry made a surprise announcement of an additional $1K gift he and Sandi are making to Brigit Collins to supplement the club's service grant to them. Wow.

 

 

"The Partnership" is a 501c3 organization devoted to developing Bellingham's downtown core.  Funding comes largely from the City of Bellingham, and also from sponsorships, ticket sales, etc.   The partnership seeks to build vitality through commerce, culture, and celebration.  Four office staff are employed.  Active engagement and support from community are essential and ongoing. 

 

And there are a lot of activities:

 

In the category of commerce, culture and celebration, they have offered microgrants since 2015.  Twenty businesses so far have gotten ‘storefront” grants.  They’ve also established a commercial activation zone where many of the Partnership's activities are focused; activities they hope will delight and surprise the community by, among many other activities, bringing energy downtown in the daytime.  Jenny and Lindsay are encouraging organizations in the downtown district to skip some of their email exchanges and get together with others working downtown on a monthly basis.  In those conversations partnership staff listen closely for opportunities that emerge from these meetings (e.g., closing streets, coordinating trash collection, connection of community leaders, advocating at higher levels).   

 

Placemaking will be their focus for the fall.  A gateway for the arts has been established at the rocket building where, in addition to the rocket, we can see a new mural and improvements carried out by Rand Construction.

 

The Alley Gallery off Holly Street is another of their activities, which morphed this year to include a silent auction of those large pieces of art. 

 

To celebrate Bellingham the Partnership has Events to Remember like Downtown Sounds, which was twice as big this year, its 20^th anniversary year. 

 

First Fridays, the former “art walk”, now includes more than just art, giving people plenty of reasons to come downtown.

 

Thanks to a grant, the Museum is now free on first Fridays.  At other times there are wine walks where downtown boutiques are open for shopping and sales by vendors who are selling wine.

 

Of course, there’s the regular Trick or Treat offerings, 4-6pm on Halloween, and activities on other holidays that include parades, decorations, Finding Twinkle, etc.

 

Membership in the Main Street America program has stimulated activities like  

Beautification and Landscaping, carried out by  Multiple employees throughout the year.  Flower baskets, cigarette butlers, and graffiti abatement / removals are a few of their major initiatives.  The latter especially can be controversial for public and private property owners.  Two thousand graffi tags have been removed  so far this year.

 

The presenters wanted to be sure we knew about the Main street tax credit/incentive programs.  Recently they’ve reached the state ceiling, meaning they're used all the funds available to Bellingham.

 

They also reminded us of the Insiders Program. Through which people can get deals and discounts.  Start at Downtownbellingham.com/insider for more information and to sign up.  They are also on Facebook and Instagram.

 

The Partnerships office is on 114 W. Magnolia St., suite 504

360.527.8710

 

One issue that came up in the discussion was the creation of a pedestrian-only street.  This is being discussed, and discussed, and discussed and is part of a "downtown-forward conversation."

 

When asked about the best way to find out what is happening in Bellingham, the speakers pointed us to Bellingham.org